Gerter
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Played the second one; the changes here are already quite noticeable.
A very suffocating start—all three heroes are dropped on the surface in a situation where almost nothing can be beaten from the get-go. Previously, there was at least an option to merge the entire army into one; now it's just tough. I went with a setup where Kan caught the orb on the second level, and Udun reached full log very quickly through finding (and brown boots dropped in a grave). Pyrrhus is some kind of completely unattractive hero; he should at least be given starting chaos since he has a special for spheres. There are also instances where his special bugs out and doesn't allow the battle to end. I encountered this when goblins from betrayal switched to my side—basically, the conditions under which a battle can remain in a state of disabled auto-completion should be checked.
After struggling through the first week, Kan finally reached some basic levels; his special is maximally effective in the early game. I started breaking through more or less, opened both passages from Ur-Hinokh, and by the end of the third week, reached Hrottar via the passage with wolves. I merged armies from two cities at Udun's location, and he began to beat almost everything. His special is completely broken, primarily because recreated units are placed at 0 ATB, making it very easy to call gates or block shooters. On the path of war, I moved quickly toward Thor Hralle; I was lucky enough to catch an orb as well, and as a result, on week 5, I merged armies from 3 castles and reached a pretty decent level of power. Nevertheless, the first human arriving at this timing caused huge problems—total superiority in one-on-one meat and stats, a very strong ballista, and it was impossible to bait him into a fight in the city. I barely pulled off the field battle with great difficulty and serious losses; without Udun's samey special, it would have been impossible to carry this. At least I saved all the dogs and almost full imps to keep pushing forward.
Against this backdrop, Sigrif had it quite simple. Even though I couldn't assemble a particularly strong build, Vlad fell on the first attempt without any major problems.
After the first human, Udun moved to the western part of the map, fought through to the two remaining cities and gathered armies from them. I leveled up solidly and found some artifacts, but Bertrand, arriving second, again caused a lot of problems. Once more, a ton of meat for the week 9 timing and once again a complete unwillingness to fight in the castle despite a large advantage. In terms of stats, at least this time everything was relatively even, and I managed to avoid critical losses in this battle, although it took quite a few tries. Again, I can hardly imagine how to beat this without Udun's special.
After this battle, I returned to the starting castles—there was a lot left that hadn't been cleared initially. But unexpectedly, the third human arrived literally 2.5 weeks later; I even had to replay saves. I over-leveled slightly, mentored Kan up to level 29, brought 80 pits to Hrottar and sent him to clear the northeast of the map. With Udun, I returned to Thor Hralle and fought Valeria; there was a lot of meat there, but my initiative advantage was already too huge (level 32) and victory was quite easy. After that, there was essentially nothing left for the demons on the surface—not a single human arrived until the final battles of the mission.
Meanwhile, Sigrif's game continued to be quite easy. I took a couple of build artifacts in Shio, dumped the machines into Obrazlo and returned almost immediately after the ritual to fight the demons. Here is the most important change—whereas before everyone had a sea of meat there and it was completely unplayable without scholar abuses and summoning troops from the surface, now all three are comfortably killed by a chaos build.
Then I calmly cleared Shio completely, gathering all possible buffs. With the entire army accumulated during this time, I killed Kha-Beleh without any major problems. Well, the battle became significantly easier, primarily because there is only one stack of imps, and a summoned one at that, which allows for almost guaranteed control on OU. The meat was just enough; perhaps it would have been possible to fight earlier, but honestly, I had no desire to suffer.
And the finale—two mountains of meat under a pile of resists, but for once we have something even more broken. While I had to spend two or three tries on Faidan, Duncan fell on the first attempt without any major problems. Victory.
General impressions are mixed. Previously, the mission was VERY hard and suffocating; now it has become easier, of course, but it's not even close to being less suffocating.
An extremely difficult and random start on the surface, which is mostly carried by Udun's completely broken special. I still feel that the special should be implemented through moving existing stacks rather than creating new ones; this actually isn't very hard to do. On the other hand, a full rebalance of the surface would definitely be needed then.
The timings for the humans' arrival are not very clear. The first one arrives on week 5 and it is very difficult to be ready for this. Perhaps its design intends for the player to sacrifice some cities, but if you do that, you will likely lose three cities at once. The arrival of the third is also very strange—only 2.5 weeks after the second, as is the complete silence afterward. I don't know if it was intended or if something broke.
On the other hand, Sigrif's line has become very and very comfortable to complete.
Better than it was, in any case
A very suffocating start—all three heroes are dropped on the surface in a situation where almost nothing can be beaten from the get-go. Previously, there was at least an option to merge the entire army into one; now it's just tough. I went with a setup where Kan caught the orb on the second level, and Udun reached full log very quickly through finding (and brown boots dropped in a grave). Pyrrhus is some kind of completely unattractive hero; he should at least be given starting chaos since he has a special for spheres. There are also instances where his special bugs out and doesn't allow the battle to end. I encountered this when goblins from betrayal switched to my side—basically, the conditions under which a battle can remain in a state of disabled auto-completion should be checked.
Bug with Pyrrhus
After struggling through the first week, Kan finally reached some basic levels; his special is maximally effective in the early game. I started breaking through more or less, opened both passages from Ur-Hinokh, and by the end of the third week, reached Hrottar via the passage with wolves. I merged armies from two cities at Udun's location, and he began to beat almost everything. His special is completely broken, primarily because recreated units are placed at 0 ATB, making it very easy to call gates or block shooters. On the path of war, I moved quickly toward Thor Hralle; I was lucky enough to catch an orb as well, and as a result, on week 5, I merged armies from 3 castles and reached a pretty decent level of power. Nevertheless, the first human arriving at this timing caused huge problems—total superiority in one-on-one meat and stats, a very strong ballista, and it was impossible to bait him into a fight in the city. I barely pulled off the field battle with great difficulty and serious losses; without Udun's samey special, it would have been impossible to carry this. At least I saved all the dogs and almost full imps to keep pushing forward.
Benedict
Against this backdrop, Sigrif had it quite simple. Even though I couldn't assemble a particularly strong build, Vlad fell on the first attempt without any major problems.
Vlad
After the first human, Udun moved to the western part of the map, fought through to the two remaining cities and gathered armies from them. I leveled up solidly and found some artifacts, but Bertrand, arriving second, again caused a lot of problems. Once more, a ton of meat for the week 9 timing and once again a complete unwillingness to fight in the castle despite a large advantage. In terms of stats, at least this time everything was relatively even, and I managed to avoid critical losses in this battle, although it took quite a few tries. Again, I can hardly imagine how to beat this without Udun's special.
Bertrand
After this battle, I returned to the starting castles—there was a lot left that hadn't been cleared initially. But unexpectedly, the third human arrived literally 2.5 weeks later; I even had to replay saves. I over-leveled slightly, mentored Kan up to level 29, brought 80 pits to Hrottar and sent him to clear the northeast of the map. With Udun, I returned to Thor Hralle and fought Valeria; there was a lot of meat there, but my initiative advantage was already too huge (level 32) and victory was quite easy. After that, there was essentially nothing left for the demons on the surface—not a single human arrived until the final battles of the mission.
Valeria
Meanwhile, Sigrif's game continued to be quite easy. I took a couple of build artifacts in Shio, dumped the machines into Obrazlo and returned almost immediately after the ritual to fight the demons. Here is the most important change—whereas before everyone had a sea of meat there and it was completely unplayable without scholar abuses and summoning troops from the surface, now all three are comfortably killed by a chaos build.
Demons in Shio
Then I calmly cleared Shio completely, gathering all possible buffs. With the entire army accumulated during this time, I killed Kha-Beleh without any major problems. Well, the battle became significantly easier, primarily because there is only one stack of imps, and a summoned one at that, which allows for almost guaranteed control on OU. The meat was just enough; perhaps it would have been possible to fight earlier, but honestly, I had no desire to suffer.
Kha-Beleh
And the finale—two mountains of meat under a pile of resists, but for once we have something even more broken. While I had to spend two or three tries on Faidan, Duncan fell on the first attempt without any major problems. Victory.
Final battles
General impressions are mixed. Previously, the mission was VERY hard and suffocating; now it has become easier, of course, but it's not even close to being less suffocating.
An extremely difficult and random start on the surface, which is mostly carried by Udun's completely broken special. I still feel that the special should be implemented through moving existing stacks rather than creating new ones; this actually isn't very hard to do. On the other hand, a full rebalance of the surface would definitely be needed then.
The timings for the humans' arrival are not very clear. The first one arrives on week 5 and it is very difficult to be ready for this. Perhaps its design intends for the player to sacrifice some cities, but if you do that, you will likely lose three cities at once. The arrival of the third is also very strange—only 2.5 weeks after the second, as is the complete silence afterward. I don't know if it was intended or if something broke.
On the other hand, Sigrif's line has become very and very comfortable to complete.
Better than it was, in any case
Нет войне.